Parched
by ErtheChilde
Summary: While having dinner in Boston, the Doctor and Rose witness a horrifying event that leaves some of their fellow diners as no more than dessicated corpses. While investigating the strange phenomena, the Doctor and Rose encounter a division of the FBI whose jurisdiction are so-called "fringe" events. [TSL Timestamp 04]
1. Chapter One

_**Parched  
><strong>__**by ErtheChilde**_

* * *

><p>'<em>I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it.'<em>

* * *

><p><strong>Summary:<strong>

While having dinner in Boston, the Doctor and Rose witness a horrifying event that leaves some of their fellow diners as no more than dessicated corpses. While investigating the strange phenomena and trying to figure out the identity of a the mysterious bald man who fled the scene, the Doctor and Rose encounter a division of the FBI whose jurisdiction are so-called "fringe" events. Meanwhile, Agent Olivia Dunham finds herself suspicious of the odd Dr. John Smith and his young intern but forced to work with them in order to capture a remorseless killer.

**Disclaimer:**

This story utilizes characters, situations and premises that are copyright the BBC, Fox and JJ Abrams. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan oriented story is written solely for the author's own amusement and the entertainment of the readers. It is not for profit. Any resemblance to real organizations, institutions, products or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All fiction, plot and Original Characters with the exception of those introduced in the books and graphic novels, are the sole creation of ErtheChilde and using them without permission is considered rude, in bad-taste and will reflect seriously on your credibility as a writer. There may or may not be a curse in your future as well, so be warned. Remembered all things come in threes, good and bad. Plagiarizing is considered bad.

**Warning:**

_Spoilers_ : If it existed in any form of Doctor Who canon, whether television, novelization or graphic novel, it's probably going to be mentioned in here. That includes up to and including 12th/13th/Whatever Doctor Adventures. Likewise, material from Seasons 1 - 5 of Fringe may be used at any time in this fic.

_No Beta_ : I am beta-less at the mo', so any mistakes are my own. I edit as I go, though, so it shouldn't be too bad.

_Canadian-Writing-British:_As a Canadian, I'm not all-knowing when it comes to British idioms, sayings or slang. I write what sounds right to my ears and when it doubt, I look things up on the Internet, so I might not always get it right. If I'm way off about something, please drop me a line and I'll correct it.

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><p><strong>ONE<strong>

'S'like a picture!'

The Doctor watched Rose Tyler lean over the railing, all sparkling brown eyes and delighted smile as she gazed out across Boston's harbour. Every so often, a beam of light rotated across the sky, illuminating the snow as it fell. In the background, the sound of traffic moving through wet flakes and slush was the only burden on the silence.

'You'd think you'd never seen snow before in your life,' he scoffed, although he was secretly enjoying her enthusiasm and the sight of her cheeks flushed from the cold. They were the only part of her he could really see, as the rest of her was decked out in a thick parka and woollen cap.

'Never this much!'

'What are you on about? I took you to Mount Everest – are you telling me you didn't notice all the white stuff there?'

'Yeah, but that was different. I was too busy taking in the view – seriously, look at that snowbank over there! It's got to be at least up to my knees! Is it always like this here?'

'In winter or in Boston?' he asked. 'Answer's usually both. Though really, this isn't even one of the record breakers. I mean, it's got nothing on the sixth Ice Age – but then, the global superstorm era hasn't started yet.'

'Good thing, too, cos I don't fancy being turned into a human ice lolly.'

'There's a market for that on Shabadabadon– or so I've heard.'

'Where?'

'Planet famous for its ice caves. According to the guidebook, there's also a rather intriguing collection of living ice statues.'

'We should go there next!'

The Doctor shook his head. 'Never could get there meself. Tried three times over the past few hundred years, and ended up somewhere else every time.'

'And how is that different from usual?' Rose teased, her grin peeking out over her scarf. It was such a welcome sight that he didn't rise to the bait.

'Suppose it's not, is it?' he allowed, reaching out to take her gloved hand. She laughed and started swinging their joined hands back and forth, and the Doctor felt something like relief wash over him.

Rose had been upset about something since she woke up that day. At first he'd thought it was just her usual aversion to mornings; the past two weeks with her had taught him that Rose Tyler was a rather cranky harridan before she had her morning caffeine fix. Still, when the distractedness continued, he'd realized there was actually something bothering her.

Not that he had asked her about it.

Centuries of travelling with women, young or old, had taught him to avoid giving openings like that. It might lead to an hour or more of conversation about some aesthetic insecurity or another, which in his opinion was more tortuous than sitting in a room full of Vogon beatniks.

Besides, he above all people knew what it was like to not want to talk about something. If Rose felt like telling him, she would. She had no problem expressing herself – which he had learned the hard way.

In an effort to divert her from whatever was bothering her, though, and in no way a means to waylay his own (non-existent) curiosity, he'd offered to bring her to a destination of her choosing.

She's waffled a bit about him having better ideas, but eventually suggested Boston. 'You said something about pushing boxes at a Tea Party, right? So what was that all about?'

And instead of explaining why it was a bad idea to go back to an event he had been present at, he had instead launched into a lecture about the history of the American Revolution and set the coordinates. After all, she wouldn't recognize the fifth version of him and they could just watch from the distance instead of participating.

Tempting a minor Blinovitch Limitation violation seemed a small price to pay for Rose Tyler's smile.

Or so he had thought.

While they had ended up at Boston Harbour, it was 2012 instead of 1773.

Avoidance of a potential paradox aside, the fact that the TARDIS had gotten it wrong again frustrated the Doctor. Over the centuries, he had gotten used to the faulty navigation, but usually when he tinkered with or replaced something in the system it stayed fixed for a while. Considering he'd just repaired the yearometer after their romp through the twentieth century – he'd even stopped off for the proper parts while Rose was sleeping, instead of cobbling together his own solution to the problem – the ETAs should have been accurate this time.

Yet another way the War had invariably damaged him and his third heart.

Before he could fall back into the ever-waiting, ever-present guilt, Rose had asked what was wrong and he'd been quick to shrug it off. Navigation problems he could deal with later. At least twenty-first century Boston had its own charms, and he'd intended to show them to her.

Right now, she was squeezing his hand and asking, 'Can we get something to eat? I'm starving – and don't get on about "inferior human digestive system" stuff again.'

'You said it, not me. Though I am feeling a bit peckish myself.'

'Will wonders never cease?'

'None of your cheek, or I won't buy you any supper.'

'With what money?' she challenged.

'Hm,' he glanced around, and then spotted a cash machine in the distance. 'Hang on.'

He darted across the street and lost no time using the sonic screwdriver to fool the computer into spewing out a few hundred dollars in paper bills.

'There we are,' he declared when he returned.

Rose eyed him, bemused. 'So you've got bank account or something?'

'Technically, I've a UNIT expense account, but I never use it. Makes it too easy for them to keep track of me.'

'So that money came from…?'

'Just look at it as the world doing us a favour for saving it every other day.'

Rose grinned, tongue in her teeth. 'Yeah, okay, works for me.'

'Fantastic,' he pronounced and took her hand once more. He'd had other companions who seemed to have moral compunctions about sonicking cash points. There may have been certain points that he and Rose disagreed on, but this was obviously not one of those. 'Come along then – let's find you something to eat.'

'Think they've got chips? No wait, they call 'em "fries" here, don't they?'

'Never mind that! You can't have chips every place we go.'

'Sure I can. I've got to be able to compare from place to place.'

'That might be true, but you can't leave Boston without sampling their seafood. Some of the best clam chowder I've ever had.'

'If you say so…'

'I do say so!'

As they were about to turn the corner, the Doctor suddenly felt the familiar hair raising sensation of being watched.

It wasn't a completely foreign feeling to him; occasionally his perception filter failed or was ineffective against someone particularly observant, and that sometimes led to unwanted attention. But there was something else – a pinprick of awareness – that accompanied that attention right now, something that nagged at him.

Without relying too much on his damaged senses, he could just feel the cool ripple of someone or something existing outside its proper place and time.

He wanted to shake it off as paranoia, or even more distantly, wishful thinking, but that had never done any good in the past. Still, it wouldn't do to tell Rose there was anything out of the ordinary going on – not until he was sure, at least.

'What's going on?'

Rose was looking up at him with concern, and he realized he must have allowed a lull in their conversation.

'Just remembered – best seafood is back that way,' he told her brightly.

It wasn't a lie – not really; after all, the sensation was coming from the direction of an upmarket restaurant he knew of. It was probably nothing, but if it turned out to be something, at least they would be close enough to it to do something about it.

Either way, Rose trusted him and let him lead her back in the direction they came from.

After ten minutes of wandering around and unable to pinpoint the exact location of whatever was messing with his senses, the Doctor finally led Rose toward an upscale restaurant a few blocks from the TARDIS.

· ΘΣ ·

'Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa! I've got it!'

Olivia Dunham found herself smoothly manoeuvred away from the trunk of the SUV and the box marked _Old Photos_. Her partner, Peter Bishop, was already nudging her toward the side walk as he slipped his arms around the box, grunting with the barest hint of effort as he did so.

'You do know I'm pregnant and not crippled, right?' she quipped, running a hand through long blond hair lest she reach out and smack him in frustration.

'Both of which qualify you for your very own personal heavy lifter,' he replied, unaware or uncaring of her tone of voice. 'Tell you what, though, I'll let you get the door.'

'Oh, you will, will you?'

'Well, you've got to earn your keep somehow, woman.'

'I have a gun.'

'And I am _never_ saying that again,' he decided.

Olivia let out a gentle snort of laughter as she closed the trunk and locked the SUV. He'd been like this for almost ten weeks now, ever since they were both informed of her condition.

At the thought, she absently pressed her fingers to her abdomen, a gesture which was becoming more automatic as time went on. She had a sonograph picture of the baby in her pocket, and was waiting for the right moment to show it to Peter.

Their daughter.

Whenever she stopped to think about it, she couldn't help marvelling at everything that had led them here.

Four years ago she'd been no more than a normal Special Agent desperately trying to find a cure for her then partner, and Peter a jack-of-all trades whose activities were only just above the level of career criminal. She would never have met him if she hadn't needed to get access to Walter Bishop, who had been rotting away in an asylum.

At the time she would never have foreseen this outcome. In fact, there were days where it was easier for her to believe that she had traversed alternate universes and battled shapeshifters, then it was to comprehend the fact that she had life growing inside her.

Ever since their encounter with William Bell and the revelation of her pregnancy, it felt as if she'd been trapped in the middle of a whirlwind – which was odd, because they hadn't even been working all that much.

Life had gone on as normal at first while they looked for a new place to live – and one which his father Walter would be willing to consider as well. Her pregnancy had been completely low maintenance – no morning sickness or odd craving as yet – and there had been few incidents requiring the attention of Fringe Division since Bell's failed new universe. As such, she and Peter had taken the past two weeks off in order to move into their new home.

The place was still cluttered with boxes that needed unpacking, but the most important furniture and such had been dealt with.

'Hey, Liv? Kind of falling down on the job there.'

She shook her self from her thoughts and smiled at Peter, following him up the walk to their new flat. 'Sorry, just thinking.'

'Yeah? So was I,' Peter said, shifting his weight under the box as Olivia shifted the keyring around for the house key. 'What with this being the last box and all, we should probably celebrate.'

'Oh?'

'Yeah – I'm thinking maybe…Italian? Candlelight and non-alcoholic wine?'

'Is this you trying to be romantic?'

'Depends – how'm I doing?'

'I was with you until the non-alcoholic wine. That stuff is disgusting.'

'And considering I've seen you chug a flatworm shake, that's something.' He paused. 'You're not going to suddenly get a craving for any of that, are you? 'Cause I'm good with three a.m. ice cream runs, but I am so _not_ hunting up creepy crawlies for you.'

'I'm sure if that's ever an issue, Walter has me covered,' Olivia answered dryly.

'You're probably right,' Peter laughed. 'In fact, if –'

He was interrupted by a sudden crashing noise inside.

With practiced synchronicity, Olivia had her service weapon out of its holster and in hand, while Peter quickly put the box down as soundlessly as he could. Before he could give her the warning she knew was coming, she entered the flat with her pistol in front of her.

The lights in the entire apartment were out, with the exception of the kitchen.

After ensuring the areas outside of the kitchen were clear, Olivia burst into the kitchen, ready to tell whoever was there to drop their weapons.

Except there was no burglar.

What there was, though, was a colourful kind of pandemonium.

Every available surface was packed full of bottles, some open and others still sealed. Sitting in the middle of the floor with several open bottles and a spoon in hand, was Peter's father.

'Walter? Seriously?' Peter groaned, visibly relaxing. 'I thought you were still at the lab.'

'Oh, hello Peter. Olivia. Agent Farnsworth was kind enough to drive me home,' Dr. Bishop greeted mildly. 'I decided to ensure all of the available options for infant nutrition were both safe and delicious. The baby should not be fed subpar mush.' He lowered his voice conspiratorially. 'So far, the strawberry is the best.'

· Φ ·

'It's a bit posh, innit?' Rose asked uncertainly.

She'd seen the disapproving once-over the maître'd had given them while she was shrugging out of her winter coat. Judging from what the other patrons were wearing, her jeans and trainers weren't quite the dress code here.

The Doctor had had no trouble finagling a table for them at the back of the room and with a nice view of the rest of the place. More impressive, though, he managed to get this space beside the heater.

_Snow's nice to look at and all, but once you lose the feeling in your fingers I'd just as soon look at it from inside_, she decided.

'You're fine,' the Doctor told her vaguely, surreptitiously bringing the sonic out of his pocket and buzzing it about. She opened her mouth to ask, but stopped as a wave of warmth flowed over her from the heater. 'Act like you own the place and no one will even notice.'

_Easy for him to say, he probably never got tossed out of a public place just for looking too poor to belong_, she thought grimly. It was one of many ideas that he had a hard time wrapping his head around, in the same way she still had trouble processing some of the things they saw every day.

Sometimes that misunderstanding led to rows, but this time the Doctor looked at her warmly and said, 'Besides, you'll look just as silly as everyone else in a lobster bib, whether you're dressed to the nines or not.'

'Thought you said I should get chowder?' she teased.

'Well, now I'm saying you should have the lobster as well.'

'Just how much d'you think I can eat? We haven't all got two stomachs like _someone_ I could mention!'

'Once you've tried the lobster, you're gonna wish you had,' he retorted, and flagged down a waiter.

The appetizers and main course went without incident, although he did occasionally look around as though he was cataloguing the room. She'd seen her neighbour Jason do that a lot ever since coming back from Iraq, and figured it was a soldier thing.

The Doctor had been in a war, after all, so she didn't comment on it. Instead, she prompted him for stories of his previous visits to America, genuinely cracking up as he regaled her with stories of the time he'd met Benjamin Franklin ("Now there's a man that knows how to take an electric shock.") and his brief friendship with Thomas Jefferson ("It wasn't until we were four paragraphs in to the first draft of the Declaration of Independence that I realized he was trying to pull me!").

The wait staff was moving to and fro with the boundless energy you usually found in a restaurant during peak times. At the raised platform at the back of the room, a group of men and women in business suits were just opening their champagne. Beside them, a young couple were huddled close together, hands clasped as they whispered intimately to each other. On the other side of the room, some families were wrangling their kids together to leave, while a bald man in a suit moved his hat out of the way for his dinner.

'Okay, I admit it – this is gorgeous,' Rose said, polishing off a chew of bread dipped in the creamy white sauce. "First time I've ever been glad I didn't go with chips."

"You want a good plate of chips, next time you're peckish I'll bring you to Quebec in the fifties. Friend of mine invented this dish with chips and cheese curds that –"

He stopped talking abruptly, jaw clenching and eyes widening in something like surprise.

'Doctor?'

Any response he would have managed was cut off by a sudden clatter near them, and a choking shriek.

The large dinner party at the back had suddenly erupted into a flurry of movement. Those at the table began shouting and cry, scrambling to grab hold of wine glasses and water pitchers, throwing aside plates and centrepieces in their haste. One of the man at the table staggered from his seat, careening into the nearest couple and seizing a glass of water from the horrified young woman sitting there.

'Oh my God!' Rose gasped, shoving to her feet in shock.

Across the room, the bald man calmly watched the events without seeming bothered by the interruption. Casually and deliberately, he put his hat on and stood to leave the restaurant.

'Oi!' the Doctor yelled after him. 'You – someone, stop that man!'

But his directive went ignored in the wake of another scream piercing the din, this time from another patron sitting by the frantic dinner party. The people around that table were now beginning to gasp and seize, their bodies going into convulsions.

'Help them!' the Doctor ordered, jumping up from their table and heading after the man himself. 'I'll be back!'

Rose gaped at the Doctor's retreating back for half a second, before throwing herself into action. She had no idea what he was doing, but two weeks together had taught her to just trust him when he did anything inexplicable.

After their last jaunt through time, where she'd ended up arrested by a secret American government agency, then almost melted by a volcano and finally nearly killed by a life-force stealing alien, Rose had made a vow. She wasn't going to be someone that constantly had to be saved by the Doctor.

He'd asked her to come with him after she showed him she could take care of herself, and then what happened? Almost every adventure they'd been on had ended up with her in some kind of mortal danger that he'd saved her from, and she wouldn't let this become one of those times!

She stumbled toward the table up on the platform, dodging other diners who were doing the exact opposite, trying to get away from whatever was going on.

The situation was rapidly going from bad to worse, as the victims of – whatever was going on – started gasping and clutching their throats. Several were already on the floor, and there was something happening to their bodies. They seemed to be shrinking somehow.

_No, not shrinking_, Rose realized as she climbed the stairs. _Shrivelling. _

The men and women that had been sitting here were now grey-skinned and wrinkled, their eyes becoming too prominent in faces that looked like skulls with skin stretched over it. Some of them were beginning to lose their hair and teeth, while others had loose clothing falling off of them.

They were becoming living skeletons before her eyes.

Rose tried desperately to call up her basic first aid, or anything she'd seen on television that might help, but she couldn't think of anything. Chest compressions, tourniquets, the Heimlich manoeuvre – nothing would work.

So she did the only thing she could do, hurrying past them to a familiar looking red box on the wall and yanking the lever down.

She might not be able to help, but there had to be someone in a hospital somewhere that knew what to do to help these people. And the alarm would be faster than her mobile, however well the Doctor had topped it up.

The shrill, ringing wail of the fire alarm cut through the tortured, moaning shrieks of the victims and the terrified yells of the people trying to flee the restaurant.

The dinner party was almost all collapsed on the floor and the table now. One of the afflicted diners closest to her was still frantically trying to drag himself along, reaching for a half-full pitcher lying on its side near him.

Realizing he was gasping for water, Rose darted forward, and helped to push the pitcher into his hand. He was too weak to bring it to his lips, and so she helped him.

To her surprise, once she put it in his hands, he turned the whole thing over himself, desperately trying to catch some water in his mouth. She could see it go up his nose as well, and his gasping got worse.

'Stop, slow down – you'll drown yourself – !' she choked, but the man ignored her.

His wide, follow eyes gazed up at her in a silent, scared plea and she felt his hand wrap around her wrist.

She jerked back reflexively at the grasp, but the man tightened his grip. She watched as his fingers rapidly became more bonelike in appearance, the skin like paper and the tips of his fingers locking together as muscle shrunk and disappeared.

'Let go!' she ordered, and when nothing happened but the skeleton man's eyes going blank in death, she tried to pull away.

To her horror and disgust, the arm came away with her movement, detaching at the elbow joint. There wasn't any blood or anything, just a sticky, gooey substance that dripped onto the floor and her.

She couldn't help her own scream now, as she shook off the appendage and backed away on her heels and elbows.

The man was still now, his jaw twisted into an agonizing silent scream and his shrivelled eyes set reproachfully upon her. Like him, the rest of the dinner party was dead and desiccated.

Rose tried to stay in control – she had seen some rather unbelievable things in the two weeks of travelling with the Doctor, things she had managed to process despite how unnatural they were to her way of thinking.

This was too much.

Before she could stop herself, she was on her hands on knees being sick all over the floor.

Sound and sight vanished for a moment with the burn of bile in her throat, and she only came back to herself when she felt a slow pat to her back. A familiar voice was speaking to her in a soothing tone, bringing her back to herself.

When she'd finished, she slowly looked up again.

'Sorry,' she gasped, pulling away from the vomit on the floor and looking up at the Doctor.

'No need to apologize for being sick,' he returned gruffly, eyes on the macabre tableau before them. 'That'd turn stronger stomachs than yours.'

'No…not for that,' she hedged, swallowing the sour taste in her mouth; she wasn't sure she wanted to try drinking anything right now after what she'd just seen. 'I just…I couldn't do anything to help.'

Now the Doctor focussed directly on her, his expression softening.

'Not everyone can be saved all the time, Rose,' he told her sadly. 'Even someone with advanced medical training from the future couldn't've saved them. There wasn't time, once things were set in motion.'

'Even for you?' she asked quietly.

'Even for me. It's why I tried to go after the bloke that did it.'

'You think someone did this on _purpose_?'

'I do. There was a man. Don't know if you saw him, but he felt…off. Like he wasn't from this time.'

'Did you get him?'

'No,' the Doctors expression darkened. 'He got away, probably with some kind of technology. Definitely not from this era, by the evidence.'

Rose's eyes darted to the dead bodies again and she tried to get past the gruesomeness of it. 'What exactly did he do?'

In answer, the Doctor pointed the sonic at the table of corpses and scanned them. 'Dehydration, looks like.'

'But they – they were all drinking,' Rose protested. 'Every one of them emptied their glass or was trying to drink it down. I saw it!'

'Their bodies were already compromised by then. Whatever dried them out, was doing so faster than they could replenish their liquid levels.'

'What could do that?'

'No idea,' he admitted, and his expression turned hard. It made her shiver. 'But you and I are going to find out.'

· ΘΣ ·

If Peter hadn't known for a fact that the universe considered him to be a non-entity, he might think that someone was conspiring against him.

Instead of a romantic candlelit dinner at the Italian bistro he'd made reservations at, Peter found himself helping Walter cleaning up the kitchen. Which, of course, translated to him cleaning up everything himself when his father lost interest and went to hunt down his _Beatles_ collection.

Apparently eating strawberry puree had put Walter in a nostalgic mood.

Olivia had started helping with the clean up, but a phone call from her sister had effectively excused her from that job. Not that Peter was about to grudge her that; as far as he was concerned, she was incubating a tiny human inside of her – _his_ tiny human – and he'd do his damnedest to make sure she had the least amount of additional stress in her life.

Considering their job, he had his work cut out for him.

It was ten weeks now since they had manage to foil William Bell's megalomaniac attempt to collapse two universes. Ten weeks since he'd watched his father shoot Olivia in the head at point blank, and for her to miraculously open her eyes afterward. Ten weeks since she'd looked up at him with disbelief and joy and trepidation and told him she was pregnant.

Coincidentally, it was about ten weeks now that he stopped being able to sleep through the night.

And now Walter, whose episodes had been manageable for the last year, had suddenly decided to start acting out again.

'He's probably just worried.'

Peter jumped, nearly knocking the last of the puree bottles off the counter as Olivia entered the kitchen, obviously finished with her phonecall.

'Huh?'

'Walter,' she clarified. 'You've got that worried look in your eye. Only happens when you're trying to figure out your father. Don't worry about it. I'm sure he's just worried.'

'When isn't he worried?' Peter grumbled. 'It's just usually when he's worried, he's too busy building tinfoil hats to max out my credit card on organic mush that I don't see us actually feeding our kid.'

'Yeah, but it's a bit different now, Peter. Things are going to be different around here, and we both know he's not exactly good with that kind of thing,' she pointed out. 'He's probably overthinking how his life is going to change when the baby comes.'

'Point,' Peter sighed.

'You should talk to him. Make sure he knows everything important is going to stay the same as it was.'

'Yeah, instead of keeping an eye out for one baby we'll have two.'

The familiar chime of Olivia's phone cut off anything she probably had to say to that.

'Dunham,' she answered, turning away from him.

He spent a minute considering whether he should go speak to Walter, but then he noticed the subtle tension in Olivia's shoulders and she suddenly barked, 'Where?...They _what_?'

She whirled around to face him, and he saw that her expression had morphed from that of the concerned, sympathetic woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with into the guarded FBI Agent that had first tracked him down in Iraq. 'Where?...We'll be there in fifteen minutes.'

She snapped her phone closed and shot him a grim look.

'I'm guessing the vacation's over?' Peter offered lightly.

'Looks like.'

'What's the case?'

'Restaurant downtown. A dinner party suddenly turned into mummies in the middle desert.'

'Sounds delicious.' He paused. 'Liv, are you sure you should – ?'

She was already shrugging into her coat. 'I'll go start the car.'

Peter sighed. 'I'll go get Walter.'

· Φ ·


	2. Chapter Two

_**Parched  
><strong>__**by ErtheChilde**_

* * *

><p>'<em>I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it.'<em>

* * *

><p>AN: For the record, I failed anything to do with science when I was in school, so any of the smart science babble stuff? I totally stole that from my favourite tv shows. I only hope I haven't completely messed up in a way that insults a bunch of biologyscience aficionados.

* * *

><p><strong>TWO<strong>

'I'm just saying, I think it's time, is all,' Peter protested in what was turning out to be a losing argument. The car slowed to a halt outside of the downtown seafood restaurant that he and Olivia had been called to. Outside the window, he could see the familiar and tell-tale signs of flashing lights and yellow police tape. 'You said you'd think about it once we were settled.'

'And I'm still thinking about it,' Olivia answered as she checked the rear view mirror and parked the SUV. 'We've still got time.'

'Cutting it kind of close, don't you think? Just because you're not showing –'

'You know, my mother didn't start showing until she was five months in?' Olivia interrupted. 'Rachel either.'

'Yeah, and that's great for them – and normally, I'd say it's great for you – but neither of them dealt with the kind of stuff we see on a daily basis. Plus, we don't know if there will be any complications because of the Cortexiphan – to tell the truth, I'm surprised Broyles hasn't put you on desk duty before this.'

'I'm sure he would have, if he knew,' his partner replied as she opened the driver's door and swung herself out of it.

Peter blinked as the implications caught up with him, and hurried to undo his seatbelt. 'Wait, what? What do you mean? You didn't – you didn't tell him?!' When he didn't receive a response, he turned to look at the third passenger in the car, who had been humming silently in the back the whole time. 'She didn't tell him.'

'Hm?' his father wondered.

'Never mind.'

Peter heaved himself out of the car and helped Walter out of the back, making sure he had his trousers done up properly and making sure he wasn't about to wander off in the wrong direction.

The street was lit up with the flashing blue and red of the usual collection of emergency vehicles, and all around the little seafood place were clusters of people, no doubt former diners, giving their statements.

He hurried his pace a little, catching up to his partner while still making sure Walter was following them.

'What do you mean, you haven't told him? Don't you think you should?' he prompted, trying not to sound like a nag but more reasonable. Olivia responded better to reasonable.

Usually.

'Peter, there wasn't a point until now,' Olivia answered, sounding a bit irritated. 'If Walter and Astrid didn't find out when we did, I wouldn't have wanted to tell them either until the danger passed. You know I'm predisposed to VPE.'

'Yeah, and, the doctors cleared you today, right? I mean, that's what that appointment was all about, right?'

Olivia sighed. 'I already told you, yes, it's all safe. But that doesn't mean I'm going to go sit on my butt for the next six months. Can you actually see me doing that?'

Peter opened his mouth, ready to tell her that he was perfectly alright learning to be able to see her doing that, but they'd gotten to the restaurant and she held up a hand.

The message was clear: work now, baby business later.

He knew better than to argue.

They found the center of the restaurant, where Broyles was waiting for them. Several yards away from that was the reason their plans had been interrupted.

The scene itself was a mess, and Peter felt bit of bile rise at the back of his throat that he needed to swallow back. He'd developed a stronger stomach over the years, and this wasn't the first time he'd seen a desiccated body – hell, he'd witnessed back-alley charlatans in Egypt mummify stolen bodies and sell them to tourists as souvenirs – but something about this plateau made him cringe.

It wasn't like with amber, where the people trapped in it either didn't know what was happening or were too busy coughing to panic before it was too late. These people had known they were dying and hadn't been able to do a thing. In a way, it reminded him of the series of murders perpetrated by Alfred Hoffman – mass suffocation of a specific group of people based on pre-selected genetic traits.

There were about a dozen bodies, all petrified in the various states of distress that had been their last moment, all so severely dehydrated that it was as if someone had posed a bunch of lab skeletons in a macabre imitation of The Last Supper. Their skeletal faces, with skin hanging off like a too-big sweater, remained twisted in agony.

_Though that could be because the ligaments in their jaws have completely disintegrated, _he thought.

It wasn't like the photos he had seen of the Flight 672 victims, or what he remembered from when his father had studied the comatose and rapidly degenerating John Scott either. In those cases, it had been rapid skin decay. Here, it seemed to be the opposite – all the victims still had their skin, but everything underneath it had shrivelled into almost nonexistence.

They were also giving off a smell like baking sewage and raw fish that didn't usually come with decaying bodies.

As usual, Olivia didn't seem fazed by it all – which was a bit ironic, considering she'd been waking him up before dawn for weeks now with the morning sickness.

_Decaying corpses don't bother her, but a two inch long not-even-a-baby-yet has her with her head in the toilet. Hell of a woman I've attached myself to._

Out loud, he joked, 'See, that right there? That should be making you sick.'

'What've we got?' Olivia asked Broyles, concerned with the case.

'It seems all the victims were dehydrated to death, which makes the witness accounts that much more interesting: they all state that the victims were downing every liquid within their reach until the last moment.'

'They chose…poorly,' Peter murmured under his breath, trying to keep things light while watching Walter hover in the background. He seemed to be sniffing the air.

'Witnesses?' Olivia prompted.

'For the most part being questioned outside. But that's not where this gets complicated.'

'Because instant mummies aren't complicated?' Peter quipped.

Broyles shot him one of his usual unimpressed frowns. 'Because technically the FBI wasn't first on the scene. There's something you should know about the two main witnesses.'

Broyles nodded off to the side, where a tall man with a buzz-cut and wearing a leather jacket was examining one of the bodies. He kept pointing things out to the blond beside him – and Christ, she couldn't have been out of high school yet! – who looked like she belonged anywhere but a crime scene.

Olivia seemed to be thinking along the same lines, her eyes lingering on the girl's jeans and hoodie with a frown, because she asked, 'Why are they still here?'

'Because they have the clearance to be here.'

If Peter's eyebrows hadn't been raised before, now he felt they were in danger of disappearing into his hair. '_They_ have clearance?'

'Their credentials check out,' Broyles responded neutrally. 'Dr Smith there is a CIA consultant, but he's been granted the highest levels of access among both our agencies for this particular case. Rare, but there's precedent.'

'And the kid?' Peter asked, looking at her watching uncertainly.

'Her too. According to their documentation, she's a prodigy from Cambridge.'

'Pah! _Cambridge_,' Walter muttered under his breath.

'I don't understand – what's their interest in this?' Olivia wanted to know. 'Is there talk of terrorism or overseas ramifications on this one?'

'You know the CIA,' Broyles said darkly. 'They're keeping it all need-to-know. And as much trouble as I know you'll have with that, I'm ordering you to keep things civil on this one, Dunham. If only for the sake of interagency cooperation.'

· Φ ·

'We're so getting arrested for this one,' Rose whispered nervously to the Doctor. She'd long since gotten used to the Doctor's psychic paper making things easier for them, but mostly those were no more than little white lies that no one really bothered to check up on.

This time the story it had made up had taken her breath away at its brazenness.

'What'd I tell you, Rose Tyler? Just pretend like you own the place,' the Doctor whispered back and then strode forward with his usual manic grin. 'Hello! Doctor John Smith – forensic pathologist with the CIA.' He'd even managed to scare up an American accent to go along with his ruse! 'This is Rose Tyler, my intern.'

As before, when he'd first shown the paper to the surly looking FBI Agent named Broyles in an effort to let them hang around the crime scene, Rose's heart felt like it had leapt into her throat.

'What's wrong?' the Doctor had asked quietly when Broyles retreated to speak to some important looking federal person.

'Oh, you mean except for you telling them I'm some kind of…amazingly smart uni student?' Rose had hissed back. 'How the hell am I supposed to fake that?'

'You don't need to fake it – you already look perfectly stressed out, just like a grad student. Maybe mix in a little pretentiousness and keep asking for coffee.

'Oh, that's all?!'

'What else is there?' he had looked like he genuinely didn't get it. 'You're already amazingly smart, and that's the important thing.'

And, really, she hadn't been able to say anything to that. Which made her a little angrier at him, because he was always doing that! He'd be rude and caustic and insulting, and then give her some little heart-warming comment with the sincerity of someone believing to their core that they were just pointing out a simple, truthful fact.

'Anyway, I wasn't talking about that,' he had continued. 'You've been a bit off all night. Most of the day, really. Something wrong?'

'Oh, now is _definitely_ not the time,' she had told him bluntly, feeling her cheeks heat up in embarrassment. As if she was going to talk to him about that here! Now! With him!

'But – ?'

'Oh, shut up, I've got to go pretend to be brilliant,' she had grumbled with a scowl, and jerked her head in the direction of the bodies. 'Now tell me what I need to know about _that_ so I don't look like a right muppet in front of this lot.'

She'd thrown herself into looking like she was examining the crime scene like the actors she saw on the telly, and thankfully he'd dropped it.

It didn't change how she felt about the situation.

She still felt completely out of her depth – how was she supposed to fake being some brilliant uni student when she's barely gotten her GCSE's? More importantly, how was she supposed to fake that in front of FBI Agents who were trained to pick liars out of a crowd?

She sort of wanted to smack the Doctor right then, and this time it had nothing to do with…the _other_ thing.

More so when Broyles wandered over with three strangers.

'This is Agent Olivia Dunham,' the FBI agent introduced, nodding at the intense looking blond woman who headed the group. 'She'll be our lead on this case. This is Peter Bishop –' He indicated the dark-haired man with the wry smile, ' – and Dr Walter Bishop.'

The third was an older man who looked a bit like Rose's Grandad Prentice – except her grandfather, who had been sharp as a whip right up until his death, Dr Bishop didn't look completely _there_. He had a passing resemblance to the other Mr Bishop, though, and she supposed they might be father and son.

'Walter Bishop?' The Doctor repeated, and then frowned thoughtfully at something only he could see. 'Bishop…Bishop…why do I know that name?' Agent Dunham and the younger Bishop exchanged looks that seemed almost wary, before the Doctor let out a jubilant laugh. 'Hah! 1973! Wrote an article in that journal – can't remember the name, but the article was brilliant! You scientifically proved breakfast was the most important meal of the day.'

Dr. Bishop blinked, looking surprised and cautiously please. 'Oh…well, yes. I didn't think anyone had actually read that.'

'Why wouldn't they? Your bit on bananas being a staple of the potassium hierarchy? Fantastic! Mind you, that bit about creating a tolerance to lysergic acid diethylamid in children was a bit much, but other than that it's one of my favourite articles. Keep it in the library next to –'

Agent Dunham and Mr Bishop's looks had become disbelieving now, and Rose figured it was time to step in before he slipped back into his Northern accent in his enthusiasm. 'Er, Doctor, s'now the time?'

The Doctor looked away from Dr Bishop, who he'd been sharing a grin at, and considering their surroundings, and nodded. 'Good point, Rose. Mustn't get off topic.'

His expression became grim as he caught sight of the corpses again. Rose was doing her best _not_ to look at them.

'Have you seen anything like this before?' Agent Dunham wanted to know, her sharp eyes blatantly studying both him and Rose.

_Don't think she's really buying the CIA thing,_ Rose realized with a sinking stomach and scrambled to think of something she could say that wouldn't sound like a dumb teenaged civilian.

'Depends on what you mean,' the Doctor answered easily. 'Weird, unexplained events? Oh, yeah, loads – you couldn't even imagine. Rapid shrinkage of vital organs beneath the epidermis? Not so much.'

'How unexplained?' Dunham asked neutrally.

'What my partner means, is, are you in any way familiar with the field of fringe sciences?' Mr Bishop spoke up, looking as exasperated with the woman as Rose felt with the Doctor.

'Enough to know most people in this time still consider it no more than a pseudoscience,' the Doctor answered. 'But we've had our experiences with that, haven't we, Rose? Allotransplantation, living calcium…'

His tone of voice indicated he expected her to chime in any time, and as her thoughts raced – she had no idea what allotransplantation was, but she he was talking about the Slitheen when he mentioned the living calcium – she considered some of the things she'd seen since meeting him.

'Thought control,' she suggested, remembering what he'd said about the Autons. 'Oh, and walking dead bodies…'

He winked at her covertly, and she felt the corner of her mouth twitch upward despite the seriousness of the situation.

'Thought control?' Dr Bishop spoke up eagerly. 'An isolated incident, or over a larger demographic?'

'Oh, pretty large demographic,' the Doctor chatted. 'All of London was affected for a few minutes.'

'Fascinating!' Dr Bishop murmured. 'The relay transmitting the control signal must have been massive, though.'

'It was the London Eye,' Rose explained, and this time she did grin at the Doctor. He offered her a mock frown, obviously knowing she was thinking of his oblivious expression the night of their encounter with the Nestene Consciousness.

'I'm surprised the CIA hasn't sent more than the two of you,' Dunham interjected, bringing the discussion back to the present. 'Usually your people have the area cleaned and dealt with before you even think about reading us in.'

'Well, it started out rather unofficial, didn't it?' the Doctor answered effortlessly. 'Rose and I were only having dinner at the time of the event, so it's no surprise the paper-pushers haven't caught up yet. Only just got the okay to step in on this before you arrived. I'm sure they'll send over more personnel in a day or so.'

Rose could read the subtext there: the Doctor didn't intend for this to take longer than a day.

· ΘΣ ·

Even before meeting them, Olivia decided that there was something a bit off about Smith and Tyler.

Although she didn't detect anything untrustworthy about the two, she'd been fooled before. Her heart still twinged painfully when she thought of the shapeshifter that had pretended to be her friend Charlie for several weeks.

Even ignoring the fact that Tyler looked like she should be at a pop concert instead of a crime scene, Smith didn't handle himself like any central intelligence agent she had ever met or worked with either.

He seemed unassuming enough upon first glance, perhaps a bit eccentric, but there was an intensity about him that didn't quite fit that picture. It crackled in his every movement, and she could feel it even standing a few feet away from him. It only dimmed somewhat when he looked at his partner. From the soft and affectionate nature of those glances, she wondered if their relationship wasn't more personal than professional. Maybe a mid-life crisis on Smith's part.

_Not that that's relevant right now_, she decided and returned her attention to the crime scene.

She launched into the usual kind of questions, getting the finer points from the FBI agents that had been on the scene first, and then asking questions of the maître d' about whether he knew anything about the dinner party.

'Did they mention anything, maybe when they were making the reservations?'

The befuddled man's head shook from side to side. 'Nothing of importance, I don't think. I think they were celebrating a merger of their two companies.'

'Do you know the names of those companies?'

'No,' the man answered apologetically. 'Um…I think I heard one of the guests mention energy bars when I seated them?'

'Hey, Liv?' Pete spoke up. 'I've got something.'

He was holding up his phone to show her a picture of an aloof looking man in his fifties.

'And this is?'

'Mummy number nine,' Peter answered, pointing to the head of the table to one of the most desiccated of the corpses. 'Also known as Dr Melvin Farkas, the head of BW Pharmaceuticals. Someone just leaked his death online and it's making the rounds of the usual social media sites.'

'We need to get someone to track down who made the original post,' Olivia said, taking the phone and examining the photo. 'And find out if anyone might have wanted Farkas dead, or had issues with his company.'

'Think the easier question would be who didn't,' Peter answered. 'The company's practically known for the amount of ethics violations it's skirted by – which makes it really strange that an energy bar company would be wanting to merge with them., given their reputation.'

'All the same, in case that doesn't pan out, we need to compile a list of the rest of the victims and find out if they had any enemies,' Olivia determined. 'Keep an eye out for any individuals or organizations who might have had it in for any of the people who died.'

'And anyone who might've had access to the Ark of the Covenant,' Peter added.

'Friend of mine won that in a game of gin rummy.' Olivia jumped as Smith seemed to appear from nowhere. 'Also, that's pretty close to what actually happened to them.'

Peter snorted. 'Really?'

'Yep. Had their liquid bits drain right out of them – or, well, evaporate, really.' He gestured back to the corpses. 'They were all drinking, right? Some of them even have liquid still in their lungs from trying to chug it down. And I can't show you without an autopsy, but no doubt when we check you'll find the pulmonary veins you'll find they're filled with collapsed platelets.'

'Indicative of dehydration,' Peter realized.

'I'd like to look into any strains of bacteria that have been found,' Walter mumbled as he went to hover near the corpses, setting about taking tissue samples from the victims. 'If we can culture the, we might be able to figure out what it was…'

'So what caused it?' Olivia asked, a bit of a challenge to Smith.

'Could've been a lot of things,' he admitted. 'Deployed in a gas form –'

'Yeah, but that would've gotten all of us, too,' the British girl chimed in. 'And we're not all…corpsified.'

_Is that a technical term, _Olivia wondered vaguely as Smith offered the girl something like a proud look.

'True,' he agreed. 'Maybe whoever did this added something to a specific dish. Easy to drop something in powder form into a soup, though that's a bit Jonestown for such a public place.'

'And everyone had different things to eat.'

'Exactly.'

'Could there be some other factor, maybe shared genetic traits?' Peter spoke up. 'We worked a case like that a few years ago.'

'Possible, but unlikely, given the presence of cleft chins in three of the victims and what looks like heterochromia on that one woman,' Walter spoke up. 'I can't be sure, most of her eyeball's shrivelled to the size of a raisin, but I would say the probability is high.'

Smith nodded, like he had expected this. 'That said, I think it's best to ascribe the KISS principle to this one – obviously it was something they all drank.'

'That's right – they were celebrating something,' Tyler said suddenly. 'All of them would've had at least a sip, right?'

_Huh. Well, if anything, she's at least observant_, Olivia decided. _Still running a check on them both later._

Walter whirled around to stare at them then, an excited and thoughtful expression on his face. 'Perhaps it was the catalyst – the trigger of whatever did this.'

'Alcohol interferes with the mechanism that regulates the water levels in the human body,' the Smith agreed.

'Aren't restaurants usually really careful with their alcohol?' Tyler was asking, examining the upturned bottle that had fallen from the table. 'They wouldn't serve something that'd been unsealed.'

Olivia's toe nudge something, and she bent down to inspect it. It was the cork from the bottle of champagne.

'How was it poisoned if it was sealed?' Tyler went on.

'Injected via syringe through the seal,' Olivia answered as she scrutinized the top of the stopper. 'Then they melted it back into place.'

'Okay, _how_ did you know that?' Peter wanted to know, sounding a bit impressed.

Olivia offered him a bit of a grin. 'Saw it in a movie.'

'Doesn't mean it's not possible,' Smith pointed out. 'Even probable, I'd say. Bet if you got someone to look around back there, you'd even find the syringe.'

'Only a few people would've had access to the wine cellar, and if the champagne was specifically requested we might be able to find out who handled it. At the very least we'll know who their server was.' Olivia directed her next question at Smith. 'You didn't happen to notice their waiter, did you?'

'Nope. Wasn't facing their table.'

She sent Tyler a questioning look, but the girl shook her head. 'Bit busy eating at the time. We didn't even know there was anything we should be paying attention to until…well, until it happened.'

Olivia saw something flicker across Smith's face at that.

'So, you didn't see anything at all?' she pressed, trying to catch Smith's gaze. 'No one suspicious hanging around, or…?'

She let the question hang, curious as to whether he would actually answer it or avoid it.

Despite his manic grin and seemingly cheerful disposition, she fully expected the latter.

· Φ ·

As a rule, the Doctor didn't trust secret government organizations. They did all sort of secretive and dangerous things, usually for money – or worse, in the name of national security.

Normally it wouldn't even be a question.

The bald man he saw was some kind of temporal anomaly at worst, which put it firmly under the list of things he was meant to deal with and out of the purview of any trite little human organization.

On the other hand, this "Fringe Division", as Agent Broyles had called it, clearly had some kind of exposure to odd happenings. They might be able to shed some like on the situation and save him the time and effort of investigating everything from the drawing board.

And so, he decided to level with them.

'There was one diner that wasn't acting as you'd expect,' he told them. 'Group of people start screaming, usually everyone in the area begins to panic. Him, he just got up and left.'

'What'd he look like?' Agent Dunham demanded.

'Completely bald,' the Doctor said, and watched as Dunham and the two Bishops suddenly tensed. _What have we here? _'Carried a briefcase, wore a suit and hat – but didn't seem especially cold despite the temperature. And the bugger could move. I went after him but he disappeared.'

'You went after him?' the younger Bishop exclaimed.

'You didn't mention that before,' Dunham pointed out, a bit accusingly.

'Figured you'd see it all on whatever security cameras you've no doubt seized,' the Doctor shrugged. 'Anyhow, who is he?'

'How would we know?' the young man asked quickly.

'Because you all look like I was talking about some horrible family secret when I mentioned him,' the Doctor said, and his expression became stern. 'If this man had anything to do with what happened here tonight, you need to tell me right now. I won't allow this to happen again.'

Dunham met his gaze for several seconds, and then looked away.

'I'll have the security feeds brought to me to be sure – but if this was the person I think you're talking about, I don't think he was responsible for this attack,' she said finally. 'It doesn't match him MO.'

'What do you mean?' the Doctor demanded. 'You know him?'

'Sort of. He's shown up at a few of our crime scenes, but there's never anything to tie him to them.'

'And _you_ didn't think to mention _that_?' Rose piped up, sounding as annoyed as the Doctor felt.

'He wasn't the one responsible for what happened here,' Dunham insisted.

'How d'you know?'

'Because of his pattern of behaviour. He shows up at what he believes to be significant events, but he doesn't interfere.'

'Well, sometimes he does,' the younger Bishop pointed out, exchanging meaningful looks with his father. 'But those times usually end up helping us. In a roundabout, really cryptic way.'

'And no one's tried to find out more about him? Oh, of course not, no doubt for some bureaucratic bit of nonsense or useless reasons such as diplomatic immunity,' the Doctor snapped.

'Hey, pal, we've found out plenty –'

'Anything else, you're going to have to wait until the rest of your paper work comes through,' Dunham interrupted her partner, pursing her lips at the Doctor in a way that conveyed she was putting her foot down. 'And you, Dr Smith, if you've finished your preliminary investigation, maybe you and your…partner should get back to your agency and debrief them.'

'Oh, my agency will definitely be hearing about this,' the Doctor told her darkly. 'Trust me when I say this matter is going straight to the highest authority.'


	3. Chapter Three

_**Parched  
><strong>__**by ErtheChilde**_

* * *

><p>'<em>I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it.'<em>

* * *

><p><strong>THREE<strong>

Relations devolved a bit after that, and so there was nothing for it but for the Doctor and Rose to leave the crime scene.

As they ventured back out into the cold winter night, the Doctor's thoughts were flying. He was angry – why hadn't the Fringe Division tried to stop this man from showing up to their crime scenes?

For that matter, if he wasn't directly involved in them, how did he know when an event was significant enough to show up to? Did he have some kind of technology to predict such things? Or perhaps some kind of future knowledge? Either one would be problematic.

The Doctor's thoughts were so preoccupied with the thorny problem that at first he didn't notice Rose jogging to keep up with his long strides. It was only when he paused at a crosswalk that she caught up and determinedly hooked one arm through his and stared up at him intently.

'What are you thinking?'

He sighed. 'Now there's a hole with no bottom…'

'You're upset,' she stated. 'Something about that bald man. The one who…watches things happen?'

'Mm.'

'Have you ever heard of anything like that before?'

'Yep. Time Lords. Sounds exactly like their sort of behaviour,' he told her. The usual lump that appeared in his throat whenever he spoke about his people had been threatening all night, but now that he was voicing his thoughts it seemed worse. '"Observe but never interfere". Except I know it's completely impossible for it to be another Time Lord – the sonic would've picked up another TARDIS frequency if that were the case.'

He was careful to keep his tone completely detached and clinical as he explained it.

The light changed and they continued on their way back to the TARDIS, although this time he slowed his pace so that she could keep up.

'So what else could it be?'

'Oh, plenty of things that go bump in the night like to show up and observe human history. Can't imagine why,' he winked at her and she grinned. Then he turned serious. 'But a species with time-travel capability, and enough of a temporal sense to know when events are significant? And telepathic to boot?'

'He was telepathic?' her eyebrows were in danger of disappearing into her hairline.

Right. He hadn't told her that part, had he? Everything had happened so quickly and then the authorities had shown up, it just hadn't been a good time.

Despite his lighthearted conversation of dinner, he had been staunchly vigilant. Before noticing the man, the niggling sense of something being wrong had refused to abate. Even the sonic had suggested there was something amiss, but had been unable to give him an indication as to what.

And then he had felt it – that sense of something or someone brushing his mind. It was so skillfully done that he might not have noticed it, if he mental senses weren't still so raw. It was in following the mental signature as much as he was currently able to do that he had zeroed in its origin – the bald man. The stranger had been staring right at head, head tilted to one side as if trying to determine what the Doctor was for himself.

'Yeah,' he answered. 'Was trying to get a read on me before the world went mad.' He frowned. 'Point is, there aren't that many telepathic species with temporal senses or the technology to travel through time. In fact, I can only think of three.'

'And it's not any of those?'

'Nope. Not enough hair to be a Tharil, doesn't look like a Dantean demon, so it can't be a Hunter and I dealt with the Vist centuries back.'

'So it's something you never encountered then.'

'So it's something that might not have existed before,' he corrected grimly. 'If such a creature had existed before, my people would've dealt with it long ago. Along with any other of its kind.'

'Why?'

'Lower species aren't equipped to travel through time and observe without interacting in some way. They're just too susceptible to elementary principles – like Chaos Theory or the Observer Effect – however objective their intentions start off,' he explained. 'You remember the vitavore,'

'Not likely to forget any time soon,' Rose shuddered.

'The only species that ever came close to being the exception were Time Lords – and even that exception had exceptions. Like me.'

He had no reference point for this mysterious watcher, meaning he didn't know what harm dealing with them or not would do to the space-time continuum. His temporal eye was still clouded, too, which meant he couldn't investigate it that way.

Upon reaching the TARDIS and ducking inside, the Doctor caught Rose yawning and suggested gently, 'Maybe time for a kip?'

'Yeah, just a short one,' she agreed, uncharacteristically game. He held back a comment. Usually Rose was rather dogged in helping him figure out a problem, but suddenly she'd rather sleep?

He considered asking her about it, but she was already on her way out of the console room.

Shrugging, he decided that if it wasn't important enough for her to tell him about now, it could wait until they figured out what the mystery bald man was after.

'And on that note…' he murmured to himself.

He strode over to the TARDIS console and began searching the mainframe for any species that conformed to the characteristics of the anomaly, but found nothing.

Remembering what Agent Dunham had said about him showing up to significant events, he decided to take a different angle. He set up a search looking for any mention of the restaurant disaster he and Rose had witnessed, and then added a second subset of data to account for any other odd disasters that might have happened within the past fifty years in either direction.

The TARDIS hummed at him in something like caution, but he ignored her as he considered the pictures and articles that flew across the screen.

Articles, taken from both reputable and unreliable sources, detailed horrific and impossible (to humans, anyhow) events that had been happening all over the area for decades, becoming more numerous in the last five years: a bus full of people frozen in amber – computer viruses that boiled human brains until they dribbled from their cranial orificies, a woman bursting into flames on a sidewalk full of people.

In almost each article where there was a photograph, he could find the grainy image of his bald watcher. And the same theory repeated over and over.

'What the hell is the Pattern?'

But instead of getting an answer, instead the screen fizzled and went blank.

'No! No-no-no!' he smacked the sides of view screen, hoping to force it back into visibility, but it remained stubbornly dead. 'Don't tell me that one search completely shorted out the system!'

The TARDIS hummed apologetically at him, and the Doctor sighed. Yet another thing he was going to have to fix and which he didn't have the parts for right now.

'Having a bit of a domestic?' Rose asked, returning from the hallway.

The Doctor made a face. 'Either I was working longer than I thought, or you took a shorter nap than I expected.'

'Suddenly feeling a lot more awake,' she answered, sounding oddly relieved and possibly a bit confused.

'Something bothering you?' he asked, giving in to curiosity over his usual willful ignorance of what companion's did when they weren't directly engaging with him.

'Nope – so did you figure out what's going on or come up with any more ideas about the bald man?'

It wasn't a skillful subject change by any means, but he let it go.

'Not a one,' he told her. 'Looks like anything we want to know about him, we're going to have to find out from the authorities.'

'So we need to find out where the Fringe team is,' Rose realized, and then made a face. 'That mean we have to sneak into the FBI headquarters or something? Cos I'd rather not do that.'

'Me neither,' he agreed. 'Might not have to. Any agency that deals with phenomena not understood by the rest of the population will likely have a base of operations away from the regular members of that agency. Something about plausible deniability or something like that. We just need to figure out where it is.'

'Wasn't that Bishop bloke a doctor?' Rose suggested. 'I mean, they didn't introduce him as an agent. Maybe you can Google him or something, find out where he lives and deal with the others through him.'

He beamed at her.

'Crude but simple. See, this is why I love humans.'

'I'll try to take that as a compliment,' Rose remarked dryly.

·ΘΣ·

Although the FBI had received an upgrade in its funding for the Fringe Division hours after the defeat of William Bell, the paperwork that would have upgraded their human and technological resources was still in limbo.

_Not that it matters to Walter_, Peter thought as she looked over at his father excitedly examining one of the corpses that had come on. _All of Massive Dynamic at his disposal and he still hangs out in a mold-infested basement._

For the umpteenth time, he glanced over the top of his laptop to Olivia. Her back was to him again as she argued with whoever it was at the Bureau that could get the rest of the bodies released to the lab.

It didn't seem to matter how many cases like this they found, there was always a mountain of paperwork and red tape to wade through in order to get the bodies of fringe victims released to them. Sometimes the families managed to circumvent the process anyhow. For example, Farkas body was claimed right away and with so many lawyers backing the order that not even Walternate would've had the power to get to him without a document signed by the President.

Peter shook his head, forcing his eyes back to his screen. He couldn't figure out why he was so distracted, or why he practically feel his anxiety levels rising. Peter was used to pulling all-nighters on cases, but for some reason he just couldn't focus tonight.

Across the room, Walter and Astrid had already begun to open up the first of the victims. For once, Peter was thankful for the constant smell of formaldehyde and burnt wiring that lingered in the lab, because it drowned out the reek of the desiccated bodies.

'Got anything yet?'

Peter jumped slightly and glanced up at Olivia, who was offer call and standing over him expectantly.

_Focus_, he ordered himself, and made himself reread the information he'd just brought up.

'Yeah, I think so,' he answered. 'I was checking out the history of any of the victims of both companies, and in the process I found out something that might count for motive. The merger they were all toasting to? Was going to leave hundreds of people without jobs or any kind of compensation.'

'Sounds like motive to me,' Olivia agreed. 'Any red flags on employees from either company? Someone who'd have the experience and practical skills to pull off…whatever happened.'

'Rapid dehydration,' Walter called, his head practically inside the cracked-open chest cavity of one cadaver. 'I am still unsure as to the exact process to cause it, but the rapid dehydration part is fact. It must have been excruciating…' He trailed off thoughtfully for a moment, and then abruptly said, 'Aster, fetch me that carton over there.'

'Walter, if that's the severed hand they found at the scene…' Astrid's tone was warning.

'Don't be absurd – I already put that in the microwave to see what effect minute amounts of radiation might have on the cells.'

'So what's in the carton?'

'I got some French onion soup from the restaurant. This fellow's flaccid epidermis reminded me,' Walter confided, and then frowned. 'Although, I suppose heating it up in the microwave is now problematic.'

Peter shook his head and turned back to Olivia, who was making a face at that.

'Yeah, just gimme a sec. I think it's safe to say anyone on the pharmaceutical side might've had the brains to, uh, come up with rapid dehydration technology. But it takes a special kind of sicko to actually use it on someone – oh, wait, I've got something,' he pulled up a file. 'Dr Richard Stark – he's got a background in virology and biochemical, and he was also one of the people whose jobs were going to be downsized with the merger. Also, apparently he had a temper. He's been flagged and cited for multiple work place bullying charges.'

'Sounds like the best lead we've got for now,' Olivia decided, already turning to leave. 'I'll do the groundwork on this one.'

'Hang on, I'll come with –'

'I need you to find out if there are any other potential suspects,' Olivia told him. 'You might see something that Astrid or I can't. Call me if you find anything.'

'If you can bring Stark to the lab, that would be helpful,' Walter spoke up absently from where he was setting several tissue samples into a petri dish. 'Even if he didn't create this phenomenon, the input of a virologist might aid in reversing it.' He paused. 'Although, obviously not for this man.'

Peter shot Olivia a look, wanting to protest, but by her expression she didn't want to hear it right now. He'd challenged her no-nonsense fed attitude often since they met, but usually that was with regards to cases they were working. They both knew what he was going to bring up, and he wasn't exactly keen on bringing it up here.

He sighed. 'Fine. I'll keep you posted if I find anything else.'

Olivia nodded, looked as though she wanted to say something else, then shook her head and left.

She was barely out of the room, before Walter was suddenly commenting, 'Peter, I believe your mother instinct is coming in early.'

Peter frowned in confusion. 'What?'

'Statistically speaking, there is an eleven to sixty five percent chance of a man experiencing the same hormone and mood shifts as their pregnant partner following the first trimester all the way through to post-partum,' Walter remarked. 'Some men even begin lactating. It would be fascinating if you were experiencing some form of pseudo pregnancy along with Agent Dunham, wouldn't it?'

'It really wouldn't,' Peter grumbled.

'Are you really that worried?' Astrid asked quietly as she returned from weighing one of the victim's shrivelled kidneys.

Peter shrugged it off, eyes on his once more oblivious father. 'It's nothing. Walter's just been up reading too many health science journals lately.'

Astrid didn't look convinced. 'Sometimes having an honest conversation helps.'

'Really, I'm not that worried –'

'I wasn't talking about you,' she replied quietly, indicating with her eyes toward Walter. Off Peter's surprised look, she added, 'Olivia mentioned.' She cleared her throat, and in a louder voice added, 'I'm going get a drink. You want anything?'

'Strawberry milkshake,' Walter called without turning around.

Astrid smiled and shook her head, then squeezed Peter's shoulder as she left.

_Great_, he thought. _Another opportunity for an awkward conversation…well, might as well try._

'Listen, Walter, I've been thinking,' Peter began, coming over and trying not to wince at how much more pungent the smell was as she got closer. 'It's been kind of fast, everything, with me and Olivia and moving in to the new place and everything.'

'Perfectly understandable, Peter, nesting is the biological imperative of most mammals and avians.'

'Yeah, that's not want I meant – look, you know everything is going to be fine, right?'

'Of course everything will be fine,' Walter agreed amicably. 'Humans have been raising their young for generations, there should be no problem. I don't know why you're so worried about it –'

'That's not…not exactly what I meant,' Peter managed.

' – as I told you before the Cortexiphan isn't even in Olivia's system anymore, so I doubt there will be any side effects. Although, I will have to monitor the child after its birth.'

Peter blinked, trying to figure out if Walter was serious or not.

He didn't get a chance to ask, either, because a voice behind him suddenly exclaimed, 'Oh, fantastic, looks like we don't have to track down the lot of you after all!'

·Φ·

Rose could tell right away that their unexpected arrival was also unwelcome.

'Maybe we should've called ahead,' she suggested faintly, even as the young Mr Bishop stalked forward.

'You're not supposed to be here,' he accused.

'After all the trouble I went through to get here? I assure you, I am definitely supposed to be here,' the Doctor retorted. It hadn't been easy finding Dr Bishop's lab, especially so early in the morning. There had only been a few night watchmen and caretakers on duty, and they hadn't been keen to talk, until the Doctor produced his psychic paper.

Honestly, she was beginning to think he would be lost without it if he ever lost it.

'Look, I don't know what kind of process the CIA has, but I know enough about the Bureau to know if your paperwork hasn't come through yet –'

'Trust me, Mr Bishop, my security clearance is of the highest order,' the Doctor replied with a grin, and then walked over to what appeared to be several cots with dead victims that were being dissected. 'Ah, I see you've started in, then?'

Bishop made an annoyed noise, but he seemed to give in.

'No point in arguing with him, especially now that he thinks he's got a fan,' he told her.

'The Doctor has that effect on people,' Rose agreed.

'Yeah, well, just don't…touch anything,' he grumbled and went back to doing something on the laptop computer, leaving Rose to look around the very odd lab they'd found themselves in.

It looked more like someone's dusty attics than a proper science lab. It was filled with computers and equipment that might've been from the seventies, if she remembered the old computers properly, and in some places covered in sheets like they had been forgotten. That struck her odd because wasn't this division supposed to be with the FBI? Surely they could afford more spock tech.

There were little note papers stuck everywhere, a bit like the strange post-it's the Doctor had all over the TARDIS console, as well as something that looked like a cross between a refrigerator and a garden shed, an aquarium with a mini-squid creature inside of it, and –

_Is that a cow_? she thought, staring across the room to a stall that definitely seemed to hold just such an animal chewing contentedly at her cud. _Who the hell are these people?_

Rose turned away from the cow, deciding she wasn't going to ask, and if she was supposed to be some smart Cambridge toff, she'd better start look like she's paying attention to what was going on.

'…after examining the bodies, it seems that each one's DNA has recombinant microbes carrying a T-4 genome,' Dr Bishop was excitedly telling the Doctor.

'Genetically induced hydrogen oxygen barrier,' the Doctor nodded.

'Meaning?' the younger Bishop asked.

'Dehydrating liquid. Drink it, you shrivel up and die.'

'Yes, yes,' Dr Bishop nodded his head eagerly. 'Brilliant, really. Liquid that makes you thirsty.'

'What, like with salt?' Rose asked, trying to participate in the conversation.

'Pah, salt – _boring_,' Walter snorted. 'No, my dear, _bacteria_. Countless microorganism that, once ingested, cause the subject's DNA to instruct the cell cytoplasm to spill electrolytes into the bloodstream, causing dehydration.'

'And from the look if it, it's virulent,' the Doctor said, peering through a nearby microscope. 'Too fast to stop before the internal organs shrivel.'

'Precisely!'

The Doctor and Dr Bishop began to converse in a back-and-forth of medical jargon that Rose couldn't decipher.

'All of this seems to be going way over your head.' Rose jumped when she noticed Bishop had come up behind her. His words weren't demeaning, simply observational, and he was watching her curiously. 'What exactly is it you're studying at Cambridge?'

Panic surged through her and she scrambled to come up with something convincing.

'Oh, um, not really a lot to do with biology, that's more the Doctor,' she said dismissively.

'So your field would be…?'

'It's more, er…to do with time travel,' she managed. 'You know, the…how's and the why's and…the should or should not's.'

_My God, can I sound any more idiotic? _she wondered to herself.

'Ethics of time travel,' he mused. 'Not something you usually hear much about in that field. What's your thesis?'

_Bollocks, what the hell do I say to that? What'd the Doctor say? Pretend like you own the place?_

She manufactured a superior smile and said the first thing to pop into her head. 'Time and Relative Dimension In Space.'

'Hunh,' he raised an eyebrow. 'So if you're in theoretical physics, what're you doing with a forensic pathologist? And in this line of work?'

'Oh, well, that's sort of…a right-place-right-time situation,' Rose said, being completely honest. 'That, er, case with the relay signal in the London Eye? Been with him ever since.'

'How long's that bit?'

'Let's see, that was 2005, so…'

The younger Bishop whistled. 'Seven years? Guess you _are_ some kind of wunderkind. You were what, twelve?'

'Er…yeah, about,' Rose said, figuring she might as well go with the lie. Then she decided, why not go all out. 'He was…visiting London that time. Saved his life, I did. And he said he wouldn't mind someone like me hanging about. Mum wasn't happy about me going off – but I think she finally realized the opportunity was better than just sitting in school.'

'She let you leave when you were _twelve_?'

'What? No!' Rose backtracked, trying to retrace her words.

Luckily, the Doctor provided a timely interruption, demanding, 'You mean to tell me you've seen this before?'

'Not exactly, no,' Dr Bishop answered. 'But I've heard of the theory behind it – related to some of the work I did in the seventies, of course. But without the proper technology, and a lot less refined, obviously.'

'Bell?' his son piped up, looking away from Rose for a second.

'Hm? Oh, no, not Belly – but he had an assistant that worked on similar theories. Can't remember the man's name though…could've been a woman, actually. I was never sure. A very mannish looking woman.'

'Who cares what they looked like,' the Doctor rolled his eyes impatiently. 'The point is, if you're familiar with what's happened, we should be able to reverse it.'

Again, more medical babble, this time sounding more like arguing. And Bishop was staring at Rose again, looking almost suspicious.

_Oh, not good_, she thought. If he was going to continue in his line of questioning, she had to think up something fast –

'So how do you posit time travel actually being possible?' he asked, changing the subject entirely. 'And, just to be clear, we are talking time travel, right? Not time viewing? I mean, I know Einstein had a whole thing on that, but I'm curious as to how you'd make the distinction. How would someone travel in time?'

Terror seized her for a moment, she thought her throat might seize as she tried to think up a convincing way to explain herself.

'Well…I…I didn't say it would be a person, yeah? Doing the travelling?' she thought furiously about everything the Doctor had ever told her about how the TARDIS worked and desperately wished she'd lied and told Peter her field was something easier for her to bluff. 'I mean, our bodies couldn't make a trip like that through the Vortex.'

'Vortex?'

'The Space-Time Vortex,' she clarified. 'It's sort of…' She tried to remember how the Doctor had explained it to her once. 'A trans dimensional spiral that connects all the different points in time and space, all of the past and present and future. You'd sort of…need a machine, or a ship, that could protect you. Cos you'd be going really fast, to travel to all those different places and time. And it's not really travelling so much as…disappearing here, reappearing there.'

'Can't say I've ever heard that theory before. How would you account for the energy drain?'

'Sorry, what?'

'Well, the energy needed to go back even one day in the past could potentially leech the surrounding energy of any living and mechanical object in a certain radius,' Bishop said. 'Unless you're about to tell me that travelling to the future is less messy than the past – unless you're using some kind of time-loop bubble to contain the bleed, which trust me, you do not want to do –'

'Sorry, mind if I cut in?' the Doctor interrupted, his voice causing Rose to jump while at the same time staving off the potential heart attack that was brewing from every word out of Peter's mouth. He led her aside and adopted a mock scowl. 'Not giving away superior technology secrets, are you Rose?'

'You're the one who told be to act like I owned the place, so I figured I should pretend to be you,' she retorted.

'Mm…all the same, watch what you say around this lot,' he cautioned. 'Especially that one.' He nodded surreptitiously to Peter Bishop. 'Something about him's…off.'

'Off? Off how?'

'Nothing dangerous that I can pick up, but still. There's a story there, that I intend to find out once we deal with the watcher and the murders.'

'So what'm I supposed to do 'til then?'

'Make friends?' the Doctor suggested, clapping the cow on the rump.

'Don't joke – she's likely the most normal one out of all of you,' Rose replied seriously.

·ΘΣ·

The drive to Dr Stark's home was a long one, which Olivia appreciated because it gave her time to think.

She wasn't completely unaware of the tension simmering between her and Peter – observational skills were her strong point, after all. Usually getting straight to the heart of a matter was as well, but this situation was so very different from the norm. There was a conversation that needed to happen between her and Peter – it had been barely alluded to or outright ignored since they got the news about the baby – but she didn't want to have it now.

Part of the reason she'd been so eager to chase down this lead was to get away from him for a bit. She'd felt his eyes on her the entire evening, accusing and long-suffering, like he had something to say but didn't want to get in an argument in front of Walter and Astrid.

She knew exactly what it was he was chewing over in his mind, and she also knew he was getting upset over nothing. It was like all of a sudden, ever since she had gotten pregnant, she was supposed to be made out of glass or something.

_It's the twenty-first century_, she thought resolutely, _a woman can work right up until giving birth if she wants to_.

Granted, in her line of work and according to FBI policy, she would eventually be put on maternity leave, but she didn't want it to happen any time soon.

It wasn't that she was completely opposed to his feelings on the matter – she knew how nervous he was about the future. In a lot of ways, he was just like Walter, in that he got upset over things and then couldn't let it go. Sort of like a dog with a bone.

But Olivia was a capable woman and they had a good support system – they had a home, a nursery set up for the baby, well-paying jobs and access to the best health care available.

_Especially once Nina hears about it and has her say_, Olivia knew.

While she only had dim memories of the woman who had raised her in this timeline, she had been trying to rebuild the floundering relationship with the executive director of Massive Dynamic (and the new head of the Fringe Division's Science Division, once all the paperwork came through) for the past weeks.

And Broyles, for all that he was a prickly son of a bitch, he bent over backwards for his friends. If Olivia ever needed anything, she could go to him.

Not that she would, because that would be outside the parameters of their professional relationship, but it was unspoken that she could in an emergency.

So really, they were covered. This little soul that she and Peter were bringing into the world would be well-cared for and loved, no question about it.

Olivia just…

She just needed to prove to herself that being a mother wasn't going to turn her into someone afraid to do her job. All she had ever wanted was to be an FBI agent, and Fringe had just added another dimension to the job she loved. She wasn't ready to lose it yet.

She couldn't go back to being just another nine-to-fiver, or worse, a civilian stay-at-home mother. Especially not now that she knew what was out there in the world.

And her child – her daughter – was going to live in that world. Olivia had to make sure she could protect her from the things that were out there that couldn't be explained. She only hoped she could teach her daughter how to protect herself.

She wished her parents had protected her, both in that alternate timeline that hadn't really happened and in this one.

From the Cortexiphan trials, from the abusive stepfather, from losing a parent so young, from crossing the street and getting hit by a bus or being shot in the head by a psychopath –

Olivia shook her head.

That was enough. She was feeding into anxiety about things she couldn't currently do anything about. Better to focus on something else.

The one-lane road stretched out in front of her, pink dawn just peeking over the horizon. There weren't any other cars on the road this early.

She could just make out the refurbished looking farmhouse at the end of the road, and pulled into the driveway. She parked next to the red sedan, whose liscense plate matched the DMV records she'd used to find Stark's address. There were tire tracks leading to and back out of the drive from a different car.

_Recent, seeing as how they haven't been covered in snow yet, _she noticed. _No other car registered to this address though…Car pool maybe?_

All the lights in the house were off, which meant Stark either wasn't around or still asleep – the latter would be odd, considering she expected him to be on his way to work now. Carpool was looking more likely, but she had to check in case.

**S**he rang the doorbell, and after a few minutes of silence, knocked on the door as well. 'Dr Stark? My name is Olivia Dunham, I'm an agent with the FBI – I need to ask you a few questions in connection with a case.'

Again, there was no answer.

Despite the car in the driveway, there was no indication that anyone was home. Suspicion and instinct told her that something wasn't right, and after identifying herself a few more times, she started to think of a justifiable reason to get into the house.

Peering through the windows, she saw through a dusky living room and into a small kitchen – both empty of any living creature it seemed. However, what intrigued her was that from where she was, she could see that the back door to the house was open a sliver.

Bringing her Glock out of its holster with one hand, she slowly moved around the back of the house, taking note not to disturb any of the boot marks in the snow as she did so.

She slipped inside the house, service weapon out and ready in case there was still an intruder in the house.

Room by room she cleared the place, and once she was sure it was empty, she called, 'Dr Stark? Are you in here?'

There was no response, not even a creak of floorboards anywhere to indicate anyone was home. She started slowly up the stairs, and was she was abruptly hit by a strong smell – the same one as she remembered from the restaurant – and knew without a doubt what she was about to find.

The bedroom was clear, as was the bathroom, but the smell was emanating from what was probably an office. Even so, she once again identified herself before nudging open the door with her boot.

Stark had definitely been dealt with long before she arrived.

The body, which she assumed was his, was crumpled in front of an easy chair, completely dehydrated and skeletal arm still reaching for the phone nearby.

A wave of nausea suddenly hit, and her usually cast-iron stomach finally began to rebel at the combination of the smell and the sight. In the restaurant, the area had been larger and aired out before she arrive – here, the stench was concentrated in a sickening way.

She had to fight herself for a moment, trying to focus herself – she was not going to compromise a crime scene because of morning sickness.

When this didn't work, she left the room and headed back down the stairs. Even as the stench lessened, however, the sick feeling refused to subside, and by the second to last stair she was already running.

She made it almost to the end of the drive before the contents of her stomach forced their way up her throat.

'Damn it,' she rasped when she was done, wiping her mouth on the back of her sleeve and taking several deep breaths.

She still felt nauseous, but she might be able to control it if she stayed out of the house.

She dug her phone out of her pocket and dialed Peter.

He picked up on the second ring. 'Liv?'

'Stark's dead,' she said without preamble.

A small intake of breath. 'Let me guess, instant mummy?'

'Looks like. If Walter wants to take a look at the scene, you need to get him out here now,' she told him.

'On it,' Peter answered. He hesitated. 'You called it in first, right? So someone'll be showing up there before we get there? Just, with whoever's doing this out there, I don't think you should –'

'Whoever was here left long ago,' Olivia told him. 'Possibly this morning, if the tire tracks I'm looking at are any indication.'

There was another silence from Peter, and then he sighed, 'Be there in an hour.'

'Don't break any speeding laws,' she told him, and hung up.

_Sorry, Peter, but if we're going to have this fight, it's not happening over the phone_, she thought and got back into the SUV to wait in. It was warmer in there, and she needed to find a bottle of water or something to rinse out her mouth.

·Φ·


End file.
